Click to play videoLa Petanha: Forty years ago, Surui Indians had never had contact with the outside world. Since then, their numbers have fallen drastically because of disease and massacres by loggers and miners.
Today, they fear their land and their way of life will disappear. In the last eight months alone, nearly 27,000 square miles of Brazilian Amazon have vanished due to logging and farming.So, the Surui called on an unlikely source - the ragogmakan- or messengers.
To the common man, this messenger is known as Google. They want to document what's happening to their forest.Chief Almir of the Surui Tribe says, "we are gathering our people's collective history, that which is transmitted from father to son, to unify and strengthen us as a direct guarantee of our future."
The project is the brainchild of Chief Almir, the only Surui who is also a university graduate. The first time he used Google Earth to zoom in to view his village, he saw how deforestation was destroying Surui land.
He approached Google Earth through an international NGO and Google wanted to help.Google Earth Team Leader, Rebecca Moore says, "This is making a story on the earth and putting it in the hands of everybody."Google's efforts are much more than just bridging the digital divide.
They are about putting information and technology in the hands of people who need it - and in this case to a community that is planning on using it to ensure its survival.Meanwhile, the Surui are celebrating with Google and are alive with new hope that they will be able to communicate their centuries old rituals and unique way of life with 21st century technology.
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